For the last four years, I’ve spent a fair bit of time trying to do my bit to undermine the pseudoskeptical claptrap that passes for criticism of the idea that humans are responsible for global warming. And I’m getting tired. It doesn’t seem to matter how many bloggers and journalists who understand the science of climate change point out the facts as climate science understands them, pernicious long-debunked ideas (it’s all the sun’s fault, the hockey stick is a fraud, water vapor is a forcing, etc.) refuse to die. Is there any point?

For example, over the holidays, Jeremy Jacquot at deSmogBlog felt compelled to write a few thousand words dismantling the nonsense issued by one of the more annoyingly popular pseudoskeptics, Joanne Nova. I applaud Jeremy’s patience, and I hope I can find the time and energy to continue doing the same in 2009, but I am beginning to wonder if perhaps all this banging of heads against walls is a waste of effort.

The comments section of this blog, among others, has been overrun by those with nothing intelligent to say, no studies to cite, no science to explore, just moronic epithets. Every now and then I receive a kind word from someone who appreciates my efforts to draw attention to relevant and interesting peer-reviewed literature, but for the most part it seems like there is nothing any of us can say that can actually change any minds. So I ask, so why even try?

First, America finally has a president who respects science, and the findings of climatology in particular. He is on record supporting a reduction in greenhouse gases of 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. He has surrounded himself with the strongest panel of science advisers and administrations this country has ever seen. And he’s already started talking about using the opportunity of the economic crisis to introduce some of the clean-energy solutions we do desperately need.

So should we even care if people like Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh and their legions of blog-commenting minions still don’t get it?

I fear that the answer is we still have to care. Although the national love affair with the president-elect shows no sign of abating, that doesn’t mean Obama can push through a climate change bill that actually accomplishes much. Remember that Clinton and Gore didn’t bother offering the Kyoto Protocol to the Senate, as it was quite clear that it would have attracted no more than single-digit support there. Even if the Democrats did have 60 filibuster-proof votes in the next Senate, which they don’t, the chances that every single Democrat would be on board for legislation that introduced a carbon tax (or even a gas tax hike) of sufficient heft to make a difference are pretty slim. The situation among congressmen isn’t much different.

This means that pressure is still required from the grassroots, and that means that those of us who believe the scientists know what they’re talking about can’t let up. Not a for a minute.

But there is also the argument that all this effort to counter the pseudoskeptical nonsense could be better spent somewhere else. We could be assembling little flash videos testifying to the non-existence of clean coal and distributing them across the net. Or we could be writing letters to members of congress. Or we could be out in the community, engaging people one on one, in person, on the relative merits of carbon taxes or cap and trade systems.

Instead we’re still devoting enormous amounts of time to countering the ignorant and mendacious arguments against anthropogenic climate change.

Comments

Why not ban the Sock Puppet’s IP Address? You know the troll is not amendable to reason, and never engages in rational debate. I am willing to wager that people who would otherwise comment are being driven away by the animated laundry.

2008 was the year when any pretence that there was a “scientific consensus” in favour of man-made global warming collapsed. At long last, as in the Manhattan Declaration last March, hundreds of proper scientists, including many of the world’s most eminent climate experts, have been rallying to pour scorn on that “consensus” which was only a politically engineered artifact, based on ever more blatantly manipulated data and computer models programmed to produce no more than convenient fictions. bwahahahahahahahahaha bwahaha bwahahahahahahahah. Now – Attention the remaining three AGW religious zealots, you can go get some kind of legitimate purpose in life. p.s. I don’t know about the other inconvenient sock puppets, but I have access to multiple server farms. You should just do what stupid liberals always do, just completely censor what you don’t want to hear. hahhahaahahah.

I appreciate all your debunking — Keep on fighting the good fight! Keeping the conversation focused on science, evidence, and logical coherency will carry the day over mean comments and putdowns like the one above (“Sux to still be a pseudo-believer”). You’re doing important work.

There is a $500,000 award offered for anyone that can prove manmade global warming is real. I challenge Trent the cowgirl to go claim that prize. Knock youself out.

Why would I waste time with a scam? I have a challenge for you though. Tell me, in your own words, the difference between climate and weather. Also, tell me what a linear regression is and why it matters in discussions of climate. Once you have done that, I have a series of numbers I want you to run through on Excel. Do not worry it will be nothing onerous just one set of 10 numbers and one set of *30.

Something tells me that this challenge is going to be greeted with either silence or parrots squawks. I wonder why I think that? Oh, know! That is because the pattern never varies.

Maybe James should apply his biology journalist skills to write posts that convince the majority – i.e. common sensicals – to jump on board the big scam. The same way he was so successful with his Forecast Earth efforts. Oh, wait…..

I do not think the majority of the comments here reflect the majority of your readers. I think I have read every one of your posts for the last two years, and enjoy them, but I rarely comment. So, please keep up the good work.

Looks like most of the comments here prove your point:
> The comments section of this blog, among others, has been overrun by those with nothing intelligent to say, no studies to cite, no science to explore, just moronic epithets.

I don’t think there is a point in trying to convince these trolls.

But I think there are a lot of people out there who read blogs like these and are not yet convinced, just because they did not yet do any research yet. It is those people who need to be addressed. If nobody does, they will just find the pseudoskeptic blogs.

I am going to take behavioral advice from some anonymous guy on the internet who takes great offense from personal insults? Really? I think not. So you got anything on linear regressions yet? I thought so.

Here you are squawking about the Global Warming being a religion, yet, you refuse to even investigate even the most basic definitions or methods. Does Polly stick his head in the sand? YES

These pseudo-science global warming sites are a dime a dozen. The pseudo-believers find something on the net about the pseudo-science (aka “computer-modelled armageddon” to be hysterical about, then repost it and repeat it without critical thought. The parrot analogy thing is quite appropriate. Friends of the Skwonker.

Your martyr routine is wearing a bit thin. You throw insulting names around when you feel peeved and only post the most alarmist of climate papers to back up your perennial catastrophism.

Your woefully moralizing pleas for sweeping government action, either cap and trade or outright taxes on the object of your obsessive paranoia, carbon, are predictably the most weepy of the many carbonphobes here at ScienceBlogs, (and that’s saying something).

Christ, you complain that “pseudo-skeptics” (wouldn’t they be believers then) don’t acknowledge the “science” yet you routinely post alarmist papers that contradict the IPCC’s reports, such as Hansen’s “Tipping Points” nonsense.

Be honest you aren’t interested in a scientific discussion you are a political advocate. Hey, there is nothing wrong with that.

That is as long as you are honest about it and don’t pretend to be a dispassionate scientific observer.

So why don’t you drop the act and come clean? Actually it sounds from the tone of your post that that is just what you are planning to do.

Just don’t try to pretend that we evil “pseudo-skeptics” have thwarted your effort to investigate and discuss the scientific merits of climate change because it has been clear for a very long time that you have no intention of doing any such thing.

Thanks James, keep up the good work. Like many other readers I rarely if ever post, but I enjoy your site very much. I also read many of the others like RealClimate, Climate progress, Grist, Open Mind. I come here to get your take on what is of interest lately. I agree DO we have to continue to answer the pseudoskeptics who have no science, no data, just complaints. It must be done for the sake of all those silent blog readers who may not know any better if they don’t hear the actual debunking. When a nutball comes on and says the Sun is responsible and not man, the oft repeated response is not for the nutter, it is for the silent reader. Keep it up.

Again, Thanks James. I find your writing and thinking to be informative and entertaining and especially enjoy the many interesting papers you discuss. Please continue on ignoring the comments section knowing that you do have a silent readership appreciating your efforts.

It’s all good if you wanna be a cowgirl Trent. I can be real in your mind just like your other hysterias and religions. Don’t feel stupid and defensive. Just be happy and keep the faith. Don’t forget my milk and cookies. -Santy

I’m one of the masses that come here for a laugh and an inside joke but usually don’t bother commenting. For all you JH fans out there (both of you), go check out the rest of James’ alarmist writing attempts and his dedicated fan club of commentors he built up on the blog archives of the short-lived and wholly unsuccesful Heidi Cullen-derived hysterical TWC website Forecast Earth. Just click throughout the archives to get a feel for James’ credible “scientific approach”. This biologist journalist (I use the journalist term very loosely) is clearly a propaganist “parrot”, as you say here, at best, but a politically driven sarcastic name-calling bully more often than not. Great role model for promoting any type of cause, religious or not. Science – my @$$. He has been continuously exposed on the web for what he is not. I’m sure his ‘fans’ will continue to agree on that. My 19 year old runs a science related website that gets nothing but compliments and kind comments from readers and professors alike. My observation is that the tone of the commentors finally is reflecting the tone of the host. You ultimately reap what you sow. I guess balanced content, respect for others, tone and delivery actually do go a long way toward credibility. Now, sorry but I have to write this last word because it’s so dang funny. SKWAWK(sp?)!

2008 was the year when any pretence that there was a “scientific consensus” in favour of man-made global warming collapsed. At long last, as in the Manhattan Declaration last March, hundreds of proper scientists, including many of the world’s most eminent climate experts, have been rallying to pour scorn on that “consensus” which was only a politically engineered artifact, based on ever more blatantly manipulated data and computer models programmed to produce no more than convenient fictions. bwahahahahahahahahaha bwahaha.

Is that you Chris Booker? Afraid to post your real name even after publishing your article in the UK telgraph website? Or are you someone else claiming his words?

Killfile is good, but works only if people agree not to quote and reply to the trolls. Disemvoweling (thankew Teresa Hayden Elgin) works.

Really needed, I think — a tool that lets bloggers do what ISPs do, accumulate a list of known sources of negative value, share it, and make it easy for people to identify and block what’s sucking energy.

I don’t know of any science sites overwhelmed by literal flat-earthers, though I see plenty of unique-theory types in some of the serious physics discussions. They get ignored. But they don’t have politics driving them so much.

I don’t read the evolution sites much, gave up years ago for the same reason James talks about here, the endless rattle of the same declarations over and over.

What the blogger/host has to realize — and this I think is where a spamhaus/blocklist collection for reference would be convincing — is how _few_ people there really are trying to disrupt the science threads. I think it’s the illusion that you’d be blocking a significant group of voices that keeps you from filtering.

But it’s not freedom of speech when conversations can’t happen because every thread gets filled with the same copypaste stuff. It’s Harrison Bergeron (Vonnegut).

Maybe one of the new computer text analysis tools would suffice to identify them, instead of or with Internet headers.

Right now Diana Moon Glampers is running the blogs and keeping the level of comprehension at a very low level.

Don’t give up. Do filter better.

One thing I’ve much wished for: a thread-dividing tool that would let a science thread be started, and the host would be able to look at each response and either keep it, or set it aside into a peanut-gallery parallel thread. If you won’t killfile or block them, put them behind the soundproof glass.

Watch kids start learning when the loudmouth ‘grownup’ crowd gets cleared out from every place science is being explained.

Why not just log onto the UAH WeB site and download data? Do you even know how to use EXCEL? Plot the data for the last 7-10yrs and you will see no continued warming. If anything you could go to Lucia’s blackboard site where she has done a statistical analysis to show the data since 2001 falls outside GCM predictions.
Or will you be one of the AGW alarmists twits on this blog that claim cooling shows global warming?

not whatever garbled name you just came up with, although I would be interested in knowing how you came up with said name. Just a memory stutter? Or has her name been around the internet 15 times so far and been changed every time?

James, like many of your readers interested in climate change, I read Isle o’ Doubt, Deltoid and others like Realclimate and Open Mind. As someone who takes on denialists on my local newspaper site (linked at my name), I can attest to the fact that the same tired arguments crop up again and again, no matter how well they are debunked. But we keep trying – not so much to silence the deniers (although I apparently have done this to newbies who argue from a position of pretension), but to target the lurkers.

The best tactic (as so ably pointed out by Hank Roberts and others) is always to go back to the references and the data. The blogs are so valuable in explaining the research to the rest of us, and the regular commenters provide many paths of discussion for those of us who post elsewherse.

So I would say that the head banging is worth the while, even for those of us who mainly lurk at your site; it’s the good fight and there are ripple effects. I am sure I am not the only one who selectively reads the comments. With 2008 being (ZOMG) teh coldest year this century, and the idiocy that will follow, we all need to keep speaking (or writing) out.

So let Me get this right. You are saying that those who don’t agree with the premise that Man is warming the Planet is not only wrong but a pseudo sceptic?
Hmmmn you sound like a spoilt child who has been sent to bed by Mommy and Daddy. I hate them. They are bad bad People and Daddy is Mr. Bad. And my friends agree with me. Hmmmph. I’m gonna git my own back one day. I’ll show them.
You need to get a life fella. Try reading some books and maybe get a girlfriend if this is the way you react to those who disagree with the nonsense you spout.
I take it you do not specialise in climate sciences but merely work in an office and waste much of your time writing pointless blogs-Please correct Me if I’m wrong as I don’t know you from Adam so tell us all exactly what expertise do you hold on the subject? Hmmmn?
Come on the facts are there for all to see there is no such thing as Man-made global warming and those who continue to delude themselves really ought to sort themselves out.
Hey I’ve just realised you are a “marine biologist”.
Ha ha ha ha.
What do you say to a marine biologist in a restuarant?
A club sandwich and coffee please Waiter.

— U.S. Government Atmospheric Scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA.

“Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly….As a scientist I remain skeptical. The main basis of the claim that man’s release of greenhouse gases is the cause of the warming is based almost entirely upon climate models. We all know the frailty of models concerning the air-surface system.”

— Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, and called “among the most preeminent scientists of the last 100 years.”

Warming fears are the “worst scientific scandal in the history…When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.”

“Earth has cooled since 1998 in defiance of the predictions by the UN-IPCC….The global temperature for 2007 was the coldest in a decade and the coldest of the millennium…which is why ‘global warming’ is now called ‘climate change.'”

— Climatologist Dr. Richard Keen of the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Colorado.

“If we go back really, in recorded human history, in the 13th century, we were probably 7 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than we are now and it was a very prosperous time for mankind,” Lehr said. “If we go back to the Revolutionary War 300 years ago, it was very, very cold. We’ve been warming out of that cold spell from the Revolutionary War period and now we’re back into a cooling cycle.”

–Dr. Jay Lehr, a senior fellow and science director of The Heartland Institute.

“All previous [IPCC] “projections” were wrong. The most recent example is the period from 2000 to 2008. IPCC predicted warming but temperatures went down while CO2 increased.”

It would also greatly help if the posts were numbered, since that makes who you are replying to much clearer.

Tony (a fwe posts above me), you see that James says:
“The comments section of this blog, among others, has been overrun by those with nothing intelligent to say, no studies to cite, no science to explore, just moronic epithets.”

You fit the profile. PLease come back when you are able to debate the issue at hand.
Same goes for the 7 or so posts by trolls. There has never been an internet forum yet, no matter how committed they are to “free speech”, that has not ended up with some form of moderation.

That’s Robert Grumbine’s blog, and his overall style and take on trash talk also is refreshing. He insists on cites with claims before allowing a post through to be public, which eliminates, oh, approximately roughly 100 percent of the nitwittery.

But in fact it was dark thirty in the morning where I live and I was sleepwriting. I know how it happened — that’s a mangling of a different name — also associated with science fiction — who teaches a different, also effective, way of dealing with mostly face-to-face nitwittery. She’s also worth reading about, for James, because some of this also applies to online exchanges.http://www.librarything.com/author/elginsuzettehaden

Short answer: assume the other person is not _completely_ from another planet. Try to imagine the world in which this person is living. Speak to that.

In this case it suggests, well, hmmm. These people are mostly either royal libertarians afraid they’re losing their protected privileged position of being smarter and richer than the people they exploit while claiming to be exporting freedom when they’re actually externalizing costs, or they’re ordinary rich who believe strongly in socializing risk, or they’re wannabes who think it’s going to be a lot harder to get rich kwik with carbon capture and energy conservation. The latter at least have their feet on the same ground.

I guess it must get a bit disheartening. People posting comments seem to be highly polarised between those who agree with much of what you say, and those who disagree with everything you say. Since the latter seem to be mostly 12 year olds you’re not going to convince any of them any time soon.

Personally I find your posts interesting, especially as they reflect a North American viewpoint (I live in Europe). I hope you continue to post. Guthrie, Tim and Hank favour increased moderation, and that probably is the answer but it would probably just drive the dross to some other unsuspecting site.

Deech56 makes a good point – people do selectively read comments. For anyone with intelligence (and without an agenda) it doesn’t take long to identify the dross and focus on the comments that are worth reading.

Bob B: you posted an impressive list of people and quotes in your post at 8:59. Could you please provide a list of papers or other research that the people in your list have done that allows them to draw the conclusion they have?

what is going on here? left vs right? believers vs non-believers? skeptics vs. non-skeptic? scientists vs non-scientists? It’s all about the tone of the conversation. which side are you on and who cares? Does this site TRULY want quote “debate” or does it avoid debate and only support one side or the other? or is it about blind defense of a personal faith? is this what “WE” want? I don’t understand the lack of willing debate from both sides. this is so gay. like yeah.

Long time occasional lurker here. Please don’t give up since many of us don’t have the time to monitor the literature for the latest updates. We also talk to those around us that have yet to come around.

Keep up the good work and don’t let the trolls get you down. Disemvoweling is definitely in order.

Did I not just say something like that? Yea, I did. Do you think if your try the I-am-paper-you-are glue tactic that it no one will notice?

Plot the data for the last 7-10yrs and you will see no continued warming.

Why stop at 10 years? Know what “statistically significant” means? Oh, I see you want to pick the the 1998 El Nino. Right! A typical scumbag tactic. Tell me Bob C what is a linear regression? How is climate defined? If you know how climate is defined why is it you want to do a statistical test on seven years of data? Pray tell, Bob.

“Bob B: you posted an impressive list of people and quotes in your post at 8:59″

He’s copy and pasting from the bogus “minority report” of Sen. Inhofe. The first person listed is not a skeptic AGW, but was quote-mined (hence the ellipse.) Tim Lambert blogged extensively about that list at Deltoid.

To use a courtroom analogy, there are the expert witnesses and there are people shouting at the back of the courtroom after the verdict is handed down. Why should arguments that have been shown again and again to lack scientific substance be taken seriously in some kind of distorted version of “even handedness” or fair play? Accepting the output of the world’s leading scientific institutions is blind belief? Or is accepting as true the opinions of the losers of the science debate blind belief? Certainly I’ve seen the weakest arguments accepted by “skeptics” as true – a hot spike (1998) in a long term warming trend counted as the beginning of, evidence of, cooling (come on guys, hot plus hot equals hotter not colder), warming on Mars as evidence of solar changes the primary cause of recent warming, presumably because cloud cover on Mars is also being effected by solar particles, believers in the solar forcing hypothesis happily posting articles that put warming down to PDO and AMO shifts despite that if true they are undermining the solar hypothesis (but posted because it appears to be disagreement with GHG forcing), arctic ice loss must be volcanic, nothing to do with higher air temps and no evidence of increased volcanic activity or ocean temps required to belief it. I consider such acceptance of anything that appears to reject AGW much more like cultish belief than taking the output of the world’s leading institutions who study climate seriously – arguments against AGW accepted automatically, arguments for AGW rejected automatically.

So, Ken, I see you followed the OJ Simpson trial closely – did you have front row seats in the courtroom? Nice try, but being extra wordy doesn’t get you any further than rejecting one set of skeptical experts over another trying to perpetuate a hoax for self-gratuitous purposes.

Red, I am happy to accept the very good quality science coming out of the world’s leading climate science institutions. Nothing anyone here has said gives me any reason to dismiss the fundamentals of the remarkable body of work they have built up. The consistency of results supporting AGW is indicative of the science being right, not indicative of any kind of hoax – for which there is no evidence and which would have been exposed easily and quickly by Intelligence and law enforcement agencies had it been real. Wouldn’t GWB have persued such a conspiracy all the way to Guantanamo Bay if it were true?

If you prefer to take your climate science off inexpert amateurs and the passed over losers of climate science debate, go ahead, but the main arguments over the fundamentals of AGW have already been heard and been found to be sound. Shouting from the back of the courtroom won’t change the verdict.

Personally, I am very grateful that science has given us a window of opportunity to act and that human induced climate change isn’t going to occur wholly unexpected and unexplained.

So, Ken, I see you followed the OJ Simpson trial closely – did you have front row seats in the courtroom? Nice try, but being extra wordy doesn’t get you any further than rejecting one set of skeptical experts over another trying to perpetuate a hoax for self-gratuitous purposes.

“… Are you sick of the way the Loony Right keeps dodging and weaving and shifting ground? They do this in part to dazzle and distract the Decent Conservatives of America from noticing that their hijacked movement is no longer about facts, but two decades of bizarre stories and never-fulfilled predictions. Disprove one and it is always replaced by new stories, new distractions. Examples from a vast bestiary….
…
… the key point here is not to indict the Right for being wrong a lot! The public has already awakened to that fact. Rather, it is to express awe toward the neocon spinmeisters, who can veer and gyre with stunning agility, spewing story after story to keep their base in a culture-war rage, without ever proving even one of their tales.”

You’re right. A blog, in and of itself, doesn’t help a lot. What is much more useful is something along the lines of talkorigins.org

A searchable, easy to navigate site that has the answers to a whole bunch of FAQs would be incredibly useful for helping interested people learn about climate change. A climate change wiki, if you will.

A searchable, easy to navigate site that has the answers to a whole bunch of FAQs would be incredibly useful for helping interested people learn about climate change. A climate change wiki, if you will.

The thing is, the Irish users are, under this ruling, guilty until proven innocent, and the kicker is that they donâ€™t even have the chance to prove their innocence. The procedure thatâ€™s been put in place doesnâ€™t even allow them to try and defend themselves. As long as the Man *says* their downloading, then they are, thereâ€™s no attempt to substantiate the claims, no examination of evidence, hell they donâ€™t even have to provide evidence.
So if the userâ€™s got a Wifi setup at home with no encryption (not a crime, thereâ€™s valid reasons to have such a setup) or if their wifi uses weak encryption (again, not a crime), heck even WPA beenâ€™s cracked now. If someone piggy backs onto their network then they are screwed.
Iâ€™m pretty damned sure that EU law, which overrules Irish law in cases like this, has got something to say about this